


They Can't Take Our Sky

by Loudest_Voice



Series: Fire Emblem: 3H fics [1]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Assassination Attempt(s), Competition, Cultural Differences, Fear of Flying, Gen, Wyverns, Xenophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21554167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loudest_Voice/pseuds/Loudest_Voice
Summary: Claude's mother watches her son grow up.
Relationships: Original Female Character(s)/Original Male Character(s)
Series: Fire Emblem: 3H fics [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1512242
Comments: 4
Kudos: 40





	They Can't Take Our Sky

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to luvsanime02 for beta reading, as usual!

Almyra's winters are sweltering volcanoes by Fodlan's standards. They last only a few short weeks, and the Almyrans hate them. For once, few will question Queen Sophia if she decides to sleep with her young child. It's cold. Even the strongest of boys might catch a chill, one that healers might not chase away. So that's exactly what she does, not that she would have done anything else if the weather had not provided an excuse for it.

There's a minor hitch in her plan when the king comes to his marriage bed that night. Reikheir The Tempest stays with his warriors when tribal leaders visit him. There are contests to be won, riches to be shown, clout to throw around. Sophia had expected him to be gone for at least a night, if not longer. She certainly had not prepared for him to slip into bed and reach for her, which she would have happily welcomed any other night. But tonight. . .

"What in the ten hells?" he cries, when his large hand touches the soft hair on Claude's head.

The high pitch to his deep voice would be funny under any other circumstances.

"Shhhh," she hisses, hugging Claude tighter to her bosom. "You'll wake him."

"I said I do not want the boy coddled," says Reikheir, voice once again baritone. "You're doing him no favors."

"I'm cold," starts Sophia.

"Do you take me for a fool?"

Her grip on Claude tightens, and she almost snaps that, yes, she _does_. The flare of her temper had been getting her into trouble for as long as she can remember. She feels Claude's shoulders hunching under her grip, and it calms her down. He has been so good for her.

"Sophia." Reikheir's voice is clipped, as though he's anticipating the explosion of her rage.

"I don't," says Sophia, stroking Claude's arm, "but I don't like the way Totem looked at my boy." Or any of them.

"True, none of them seemed particularly impressed," says Reikheir.

"He's four," says Sophia.

"Which is why I left the best warrior in Almyra guarding him tonight," Reikheir finishes.

He knows the people of Almyra better than Sophia ever could (for obvious reasons), so he does not bother to pretend that Claude's life isn't at risk. What better way is there to prove that Reikheir is unfit to be king than to kill his own son under his nose? Sophia kisses Claude's forehead, then gets up from the bed and walks towards Reikheir. He is over a head taller than her, and almost three times as broad. His hair is thick and unwieldy, almost as wild as the scruff of his great wyvern. Sophia wishes Claude took more after him, but his features are delicate. Essentially, he has her face but in a darker skin tone.

"You're the best warrior in Almyra," she says, wrapping her arms around his neck.

Reikheir rolls his eyes, but he also preens. "I'm the fool who lets his wife bring another man to his marriage bed."

Sophia resists the urge to roll her eyes. "I promise once the warlords return home, I'll vanish Claude to the opposite end of the castle and the bed will be all for us."

"I'll hold you to that," says Reikheir, lifting her right off the ground and carrying her to bed.

Claude scurries aside under the blanket, drawing Sophia's attention at the same time Reikheir moves in for a kiss. She tries to kiss back at the same time as she reaches for Claude.

"Right," says Reikheir, letting out a resigned sigh.

Sophia barely hears him, in her search for Claude. Her baby glides away from her touch.

"I wanna go back to my room," says Claude, from under the blanket.

"Claude," says Sophia.

"It's hot here," complains Claude.

Suddenly, Sophia wants to cry. She knows that Reikheir will not ask Claude to stay, and short of forbidding him from leaving, it would be the only way to convince him that he is wanted. Reikheir will do no such thing. He's probably glad that Claude is asking to leave his mother's side, never mind that he's too young to understand what is happening. Only that his parents are upset, and it has to do with him.

"Stay and make your mother happy," says Reikheir. "It's what an honorable warrior would do."

So Claude stays. But he sleeps at the foot of the bed, like a puppy trying to stay out of the way.

* * *

Sophia won't ever admit it out loud, but she's a tad scared of flying. She's not scared of heights, exactly, just of going up and coming back down. Something about the very air changes when a pegasus or wyvern lifts off; Sophia feels it in her ears and in her belly. Reikheir never mentions it, but he knows to not invite her on flights often. He does it only when not inviting his queen on a victory flight would be interpreted as unhappiness between them.

The flights become almost enjoyable when Claude grows old enough to appreciate them. There isn't a fleck of fear in his laughter as Reikheir soars over Almyra's capital.

"Higher, Papa!" he shrieks, both arms extended towards the sun. "Higher!"

Sophia tightens her arms around him as Reikheir steers the massive wyvern up, practically at a vertical angle.

"Oh, Goddess," she whispers, involuntarily, as her heart hammers in her chest.

Reikheir and Claude are too focused on the wind to hear her. Sophia is grateful, and not just because it spares her the embarrassment. They are both so happy in the sky, and to share their joy, Sophia will withstand all the fear in the world.

* * *

"How come your family never comes to visit?" Claude asks her.

He is six years old, and coming back from studying the art of bow-making with one of Reikheir's master bowyers. Sophia stops sharpening her blade. The maid kneeling before her to help tighten her boots pauses, just for long enough that Sophia notices. Out of embarrassment, probably. She had been a beggar at the market before Sophia selected her to be one of her chambermaids.

"Cairon says it's because they're scared of the Coliseum," says Claude, gripping his small bow so tightly that his knuckles go white.

He's not wrong. Not entirely, anyway.

Sophia holds back a sigh, and gestures for Claude to come forward. "There are many reasons my family won't visit," she starts.

"Could we visit them?" asks Claude. "Papa won't be afraid of their Coliseum, I'm sure!"

There are no Coliseums in Fodlan. That isn't the issue. It's that Duke Riegan would not extend the invitation to Sophia's barbarian husband, and Reikheir would only go to a place where he hasn't been invited to conquer it.

"We will write to my father after today's duel," Sophia tells Claude.

Claude beams.

Sophia almost lets herself hope. Maybe Duke Riegan will be tempted by the prospect of meeting a grandson who bears the Major Crest of Riegan.

They write five letters over a two-year period before giving up.

* * *

Claude is seven years old and he already has a fake smile. Sophia sees it every time someone says something indirect about the limp quality of her straw-colored hair. Or whenever someone laughs about fleeing curs near the border with Fodlan. Or how green is a weak color, a bad omen when infecting a person's eyes.

"My eyes are green too, aren't they?" Claude says one day, as he holds a gleaming dagger near the candlelight.

"Yes," says Sophia, heart fluttering.

"Well, it must be pretty," says Claude. "Like leaves on a tree."

"Like emeralds in a dark cave," says Sophia, smiling.

"Like the scales on a mountain wyvern," says Claude. "That's a good one. I should aim for a mountain wyvern."

Claude holds his head high. Reikheir would accept nothing less, and Sophia is grateful. When she married an Almyran man, she had done so with pride, eager to prove her love to a hostile world. She had not considered that she would be volunteering her children to a life of isolation. Her child. Claude would never have siblings - not from her, anyway. Bringing him into the world had been a battle she'd almost lost. The midwives had torn her womb out of her abdomen, then forced searing magic into the gaping wound. The jagged scar still pulled at the skin of her lower belly.

* * *

Claude is ten the first time an assassin cuts through his guard in the middle of the night. It happens during a feast full of visiting warlords, the first one Claude had forgone since his induction into the Almyran ranks. A headache, he'd pleaded. Reikheir had seemed skeptical, but he has never been one to force his son to do anything. He suggests, reminds, guides. But the Almyrans value freedom, even from family, and so Claude had been making decisions since before he could talk.

"A free man shouldn't be where his heart isn't," Reikheir likes to say.

A great sentiment, but one that almost cost Claude his life. In Fodlan, a king would not allow his son to dishonor guests by refusing to join the festivities over something as banal as a headache.

"He was dead when he came in," Claude says, after his room has been cleared of corpses. "Diak - the guard - got him in the liver. I went for his neck and missed, got him in the eye."

"We will honor Diak in the Coliseum for the next month," Reikheir says, patting Claude's shoulder. "You did well."

"Thank you, Father," says Claude, voice flat.

Sophia would go and hug him, but not in public. She will cry in private later. While she does not care what people say about her, she doesn't want to further stain Claude's reputation.

* * *

She joins the Almyran mock frays, sometimes. Always with undulled blades, ready to defend her own life. They are supposed to be friendly displays of power, but Sophia has no friends in Almyra. Not outside the servants she has personally recruited, and none of them are nobles, so they cannot seek glory in the Coliseum.

In the sixteen years since she's been in Almyra, Sophia has fought eighteen duels in the Coliseum. Thirteen opponents had accepted her offer to allow them to yield, three had refused to live with the stain of accepting mercy from a Fodlanese coward, and two had almost emerged victorious. The last two. Sophia considers that she's getting old. She keeps up with her drills, of course, and spars with Reikheir almost daily, but little can be done once one's reflexes begin to dull.

"You're selling yourself short," Reikheir tells her. "The cubs might have an edge when it comes to energy, but nothing beats experience."

Perhaps.

Sophia remembers stepping into the Coliseum eagerly, almost desperately. If only the Almyrans saw her in battle, crest of Riegan filling her with power, they would accept her as their queen. They valued strength and courage above all else, did they not? Didn't Almyra see kindness as a privilege reserved for the strongest of warriors? How could they pretend that she'd bewitched Reikheir with her goldspun hair if she took down fighters twice her size?

They figured it out. Sophia's victories had never been seen as proof of her worth, but as proof of her opponents' worthlessness. Every victory in the Coliseum got her more vicious enemies, no matter how religiously she observed Almyra's customs.

That day's duel is a relatively easy one. Sophia displays no mercy, as the girl battling her would see it as an insult and so would the spectators. Sophia holds back an offer to yield until the girl is dizzy from bloodlessness, hoping that the fear will prompt her to accept it. Or that she will lose consciousness before Sophia is forced to cut through her. This one has refrained from insulting Claude, after all. Sophia wants her to live and grow, to become a powerful figure among Almyra's governing body.

Unfortunately, the girl is too skilled. She comes for Sophia's throat with such ferocity that Sophia can stop her only by driving a sword through her belly.

* * *

On his thirteen birthday, Claude wins an archery contest hosted by one of Reikheir's fiercest rivals. Shocked silence overtakes the Coliseum when Claude's arrow cleaves the other finalist's, hitting the target right in the bullseye. Sophia doesn't inhale. It's like her heart has stopped beating. A breath wheezes past her lips when Claude's head turns towards the main stand, where their host and his parents are observing.

The rival warlord gets up and declares Claude the victor with some clipped praises that Sophia barely hears. The crowd finally erupts into cheers. Her gaze is fixed on the brat standing next to Claude, another youth who towers over her son. Sophia will have to speak to Claude about never taking his eyes off a potential threat.

Reikheir lays a hand on her shoulder, startling her. She looks up at his beaming face and finally joins the clapping and cheering. The last thing she wants is to end up as paranoid as Duke Riegan.

The first place prize is a battle-breed wyvern hatchling. Claude's face breaks into an ecstatic grin when it's announced. He strokes the burnished scales with reverence, and then thanks the warlord profusely, promising to protect it with his life.

Wyverns are practically worshipped in Almyra, but the words still make Sophia's blood run cold.

* * *

The wyvern hatchling takes over Claude's free time, as Sophia predicted that it would. Claude does not come to her as often, and stays for a shorter time when he does.

"The wyvern master says she's a girl," he tells her excitedly, two months after his victory. "They're happier in battle and better suited for long campaigns, but also harder to manage outside of it. Sounds a lot like most of Almyra, honestly."

"Yes," says Sophia. "How are your agemates taking to her?" According to her maids, there's gossip that Claude got the hatchling because Reikheir demanded it.

Claude shrugs, happy expression dimmed for a moment. "I need a name for her soon," he says, schooling his features into an excited grin. "I'm thinking Callisto, or Morvana."

Almyran queens renowned for their many wartime victories, and credited for expanding Almyra's territories into what had once been part of Fodlan's Adrestian Empire.

"I like Callisto," says Sophia.

"Me too!" Claude nods. "The wyvern master says I better pick soon or she won’t listen to any name, so Callisto it is. In six months or so, she'll be big enough to lift off with my weight added. . . assuming I don't get too big. I never imagined I'd ever want _not_ to get bigger."

"The world works in mysterious ways," says Sophia, throwing an arm around his shoulders. "Let's go. Show me Callisto's progress."

* * *

When she has time to spare, Sophia visits the royal aviary. Much to the wyvern masters' annoyance. The Barbarossa and their veterans pay their foreign queen more mind than most, since it's no secret that she has no fondness for the finicky beasts. Sophia bets that the old bastards are beside themselves, gossiping about what horrific meddling she's planning. Will she demand that they allow commoners to ride their precious beasts?

Sophia just wants to watch Claude training Callisto. He's on the cusp of manhood and suffering from the expected moodiness. Only training his wyvern to leap at moving targets while flying through obstacle courses seems to make him happy. Sophia appreciates Callisto as well. Her wingspan gets more impressive with every passing day, and it's quite a spectacle to see them contrasted against the light of Almyra's unforgiving sun. Some of Callisto’s scales are developing a hint of glimmering emerald at the tips.

Reikheir joins her one day, or perhaps just runs into her in the middle of kingly business. His guard stays at a respectful distance as he saunters over to her side. Claude is so engrossed with Callisto that he doesn't notice that the aviary has suddenly grown quiet, except for the sounds of wyverns stretching their wings and occasionally hissing.

"You're spending a great deal of time here lately," says Reikheir.

"Am I getting in their way?" asks Sophia. Perhaps the wyvern masters have complained of the outsider in their midst.

"No," says Reikheir, shaking his head. "I just wondered. . . You seem distant lately."

Sophia does not deny it.

"Is there something wrong?" asks Reikheir.

"No more than usual," says Sophia, as Claude signals to Callisto to come back down.

Reikheir sighs. Sophia does not need to look up to know that he's rubbing his forehead tiredly.

"It's nothing anybody has done," she says.

Reikheir is a good man who has always tried to make her happy. It's not his fault that he has not managed to get his people to accept her. It was just the way of the world. Sophia has never managed to convince even her immediate family to see the wisdom of their union.

"Then what is it?" Good man or not, Reikheir is not patient.

"Time," Sophia says vaguely. "Claude is getting older."

Callisto lands in front of him, immediately nuzzling at his chest, expecting to cuddle. Claude pats her nuzzle, then gives a firm command. Callisto leaps back and arranges her body into a resting stance that makes her take as little space as possible.

"He's growing into himself," says Reikheir. "I'm proud of him."

Sophia smiles to herself. "I've always been proud of him."

**Author's Note:**

> Not entirely happy with how this ended, but I never am🙃


End file.
